Risk adjustment in Switzerland

Health Policy. 2003 Jul;65(1):63-74. doi: 10.1016/s0168-8510(02)00117-3.

Abstract

In Switzerland the new law on Health Insurance, effective since 1996, introduced pro competitive changes in the market of sickness funds. The legislator expected high mobility between sickness funds of both healthy and sick insured as open enrolment was introduced with the new law. That is why the risk adjustment scheme, that was already introduced 1993, was limited until 2005. However, consumer mobility remained low and risk selection strategies are still profitable, since risk-adjustment is based only on demographic variables. This paper describes risk adjustment, consumer mobility, risk selection activities of sickness funds and the impact of imperfect risk adjustment on the development of HMO and PPO models. The paper concludes with a description of the current political and scientific discussion in Switzerland.

MeSH terms

  • Capitation Fee*
  • Community Participation
  • Cost Control
  • Efficiency, Organizational
  • Health Care Reform / economics*
  • Health Care Reform / legislation & jurisprudence
  • Health Expenditures
  • Humans
  • Insurance Selection Bias
  • Managed Competition / economics*
  • Managed Competition / statistics & numerical data
  • Models, Econometric
  • National Health Programs / economics*
  • National Health Programs / legislation & jurisprudence
  • National Health Programs / organization & administration
  • Risk Adjustment / methods*
  • Social Security / economics
  • Switzerland